Zephaniah
Masculine · “Yahweh has hidden”
Zephaniah is given to both — 3,380 boys and 477 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Zephaniah comes to English from Hebrew by way of the Greek Bible, where it appears as Sophonias — the name of one of the twelve minor prophets, whose short book of warning and hope sits near the end of the Old Testament. Four syllables that rise and settle: zef-uh-NY-uh. English speakers have written it in this exact spelling since the Reformation-era translations, and it has been shortened to Zeph for nearly as long.
How old is the name Zephaniah?
Zephaniah first appears in US birth records in 1972 — 53 years ago. The typical Zephaniah is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 3,300 people named Zephaniah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zephaniah most popular?
Zephaniah peaked in 2019, reaching #1136 nationally. Today it ranks #1451, 315 places below that high. See the whole 2019 chart.
Zephaniah appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Tzefanyah to Zephaniah
The story of Zephaniah
The name belongs to the Hebrew Bible, where its best-known bearer prophesied in Judah during the reign of King Josiah in the seventh century BC; the book that carries his name opens by tracing his ancestry back four generations. When Jewish scholars translated the scriptures into Greek at Alexandria, Tzefanyah became Sophonias, and Latin kept that form — which is why the Romance languages still say Sofonías and Sophonie while English says Zephaniah. The English spelling arrived with the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century vernacular Bibles, and Puritan families in England and then New England took it up along with other Old Testament prophet names. It has never disappeared from English-speaking use since, though it has always been carried by a small number at any one time.
Meaning
Yahweh has hidden — 'hidden' or 'protected' by God
The Hebrew Tzefanyah joins a verb meaning to hide or store away with a short form of the divine name. Some reference works render the sense as 'treasured by the Lord,' which is the same root read as storing something up rather than concealing it.
How the name formed
- Tzefanyah
- Sophonias
- Zephaniah
Related forms: Tzefanyah · Sophonias · Sofonías · Sophonie · Sofonia · Sofonias
Pronouncing Zephaniah
zef-uh-NY-uh
Four syllables with the stress on the third. The opening Z is a plain English z, and the ending rhymes with the ending of Isaiah. Spanish and Portuguese speakers will more likely recognize the Sofonías form.
Nicknames for Zephaniah
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1972
- Most boys named
- 2019171 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1136reached in 2019
- Change vs 2024
- −14.6%123 in 2025, from 144
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Zephaniah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tzefanyah in Hebrew — same name
- Sophonias in Greek — same name
- Sofonías in Spanish — same name
- Sophonie in French — same name
- Sofonia in Italian — same name
- Sofonias in Portuguese — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Zephaniahs among us
people named Zephaniah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 13,887 born in 2025 was named Zephaniah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Sameer test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Zephaniah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sameer climbed just as high around 2001, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sameer's path sketches the road Zephaniah is walking now.
Zephaniah sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Zephaniah is headed
Zephaniah should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Zephaniah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zephaniah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented record stretching back to the Hebrew scriptures and forward through every English Bible translation — no risk of it reading as newly invented.
- Zeph is a ready-made short form with centuries of use behind it, so the full name never has to be the everyday one.
- Spelled the way it sounds once heard, and the spelling has been fixed in English print for four hundred years.
- Recognizable across languages through its Sofonías, Sofonia and Sophonie forms, which helps in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking families.
- Four syllables is a lot to spell out over the phone, and it will be misheard as Zachariah or Zebediah more than once. The Zeph short form does most of the daily work for many families.
- The biblical tie is close and unmistakable — this is the name of a prophetic book, not a name that merely passed through scripture. Worth deciding whether that reading suits your family.
- It looks and sounds close to zephyr, the Greek word for the west wind, though the two names are unrelated. Expect people to assume a connection.
- A child with this name will likely be the only one in the school, which means introductions take a beat longer — and also that the name stays theirs.
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What they receive
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Zephaniah
Masculine · #1451 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zephaniahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,300 people named Zephaniah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Zephaniah in 2025?
- Zephaniah ranks #1451 among US boy names in 2025, with 123 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zephaniah?
- About 1 in every 13,887 US boys born in 2025 was named Zephaniah — 123 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zephaniah with classmates?
- Zephaniah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zephaniah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dov#1451 · Demari#1451 · Ozzie#1451 · Pierson#1451 · Zamari#1451 · Osiel#1451 · Coy#1451 · Giuseppe#1459
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Zephaniah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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